Every POS demo looks good for the first ten minutes. The differences that matter show up on a busy evening, at month-end, and on the day you want to switch away. Here's a buyer's checklist built around those moments, with the questions to ask before you pay.

1. Billing speed and the counter workflow

Watch a real bill being made, start to finish, on the hardware you'll actually use. Count the taps. Ask:

  • How many taps from "new order" to "printed bill" for a typical 6-item order?
  • Can a cashier search an item by short code, not just by scrolling a grid?
  • Is there a keyboard-first mode, or is it touch-only?
  • How does it handle a modifier ("no onion", "extra cheese") — one tap or a buried sub-menu?

A POS that's two seconds slower per bill costs you real minutes across a dinner rush.

2. Offline mode — not "cloud sync", actually offline

Indian internet drops. The question isn't whether the POS is "cloud-based" — most are — it's what happens when the connection goes away mid-service:

  • Can staff keep billing with zero interruption?
  • Do bills queue locally and sync automatically when the link returns?
  • Is any data lost if the device restarts while offline?

Ask the salesperson to put the tablet in airplane mode during the demo and make three bills. If they hesitate, you have your answer.

3. GST and reporting at month-end

  • Does it produce a GSTR-1 / GSTR-3B-ready sales summary, or just a pile of daily totals?
  • Can you export tax reports to Excel and PDF for your accountant?
  • Are invoice numbers strictly sequential with no gaps?
  • Can it show CGST/SGST split correctly for your rate?

4. Hardware compatibility

Confirm the POS works with the printers and devices you own or plan to buy — thermal receipt printers (Epson, TVS, Rongta and similar), a cash drawer that triggers on print, and a barcode scanner for retail. Ask whether it needs a specific brand of tablet or runs on any modern Android device and the web.

5. Data ownership and exit

This is the question most buyers skip and later regret:

  • Can you export all your data — items, customers, sales history — yourself, any time, in a standard format?
  • If you stop paying, do you keep read access to your historical data?
  • Who owns the customer contact list you build — you, or the vendor?

6. The real price

Get the total written down before you commit:

  • Is it per-device, per-outlet, or flat?
  • Setup or onboarding fee?
  • Charges for extra staff logins, or are users unlimited?
  • Cost of the online-ordering module, the captain app, the KDS — bundled or add-on?
  • What does support cost, and what are the hours?
  • Any per-transaction or per-order commission?
Red flag: a low headline price that turns into a much bigger number once you add the modules you actually need. Ask for the all-in annual figure for your setup, in writing.

7. Support you can reach

On the night the printer stops working, you need a human. Ask how support is delivered (phone, WhatsApp, email), the hours, the typical response time, and whether it's the same team that knows your account or a fresh ticket every time.

Scorecard

Rate each vendor 1–5 on: billing speed, true offline mode, GST reporting, hardware fit, data portability, all-in price, support. The one that scores well on offline, reporting and data portability — the boring ones — is usually the one you'll still be happy with in two years.

If you want to run this checklist against POSYatra, our features page answers most of it directly, and you can book a demo and try the airplane-mode test yourself.